BENGALURU: Uber driver Hanumantha tells us that he has not been paid the incentive for the last trip by the company and fellow driver Parmeshwarappa nods in agreement. As the strike in Hyderabad intensifies against the mobile-app based cab operators Ola and Uber, drivers in Bengaluru are voicing similar complaints.
“I have to cover a minimum Rs 900 in the morning which was Rs 650 earlier. It is evening by the time I do this after which the company owes me Rs 2,200. Out of this Rs 2,200 the company deduct 30 per cent and thereafter they deduct Uber fees. The remaining money is mine. Till October there was some amount of stability as I would draw around Rs 1500 after a similar day, but now it has come down to Rs 1000,” explained Hanumantha.
“We don’t know the exact reason for this downward slope but the timing coincides with the demonetisation days,” he added. Drivers in the city are complaining that the company should not have done away with the Rs 650 slab which was the minimum a driver could do in a day to earn an incentive. However, both logistics and e-commerce experts are of the opinion that the cab-aggregator companies have no white paper where they have listed the incentive structure. It is difficult for anyone to figure it out as the companies have refused to share it, which makes it absolutely non-transparent.
According to Sreedhar Prasad, e-commerce expert at KPMG, “Uber has a very complicated incentive model. We don’t know whether they have changed the model to make drivers available for a longer time online. They may have done some incentive structure tweaking so that drivers need to work much more to get the same money. It may be the case that the incentive has not been cut and is the same, but they may have increased the input for the incentive.”
For this model to become more profitable, the revenue per driver has to increase, he added. Earlier for a bonus of Rs 2,000 if you would have to cover 10 trips and Rs 1000, they can change that model to 12 trips and Rs 1400 for the same amount of bonus. This has nothing to do with demonetisation, but the industry is refining its fundamental model.Most of the Ola drivers in the city confirmed that they are aware that their counterparts in Uber are facing a tough time.
“We have heard about the incentives tightening in Uber but we have not faced the heat as of now. Things are not that rosy as it was a year ago in Ola but lately it is the Uber drivers who are taking home as less as Rs 25,000 per month after 10-12 hours each day,” said Dakshinamoorthy, an Ola driver,S.P Singh from the Indian Foundation of Transport Research and Training said, “Cab aggregators are applying different formulas and rates in different cities arbitrarily without any transparency. The government is appeasing them and these people have acquired arrogance. They hire a large number of drivers and they are intermediaries. They must give genuine categorical reasons about the issues that are putting a strain on their balance sheets. They must be asked to file quarterly returns— how many vehicles they are running and their list of drivers should be available to the government.”
Further he added, “These drivers must be registered with the Labour Department but these companies tell us that it is contract labour and keep away from the labour laws.”
Drivers across the city testified to the veracity of the complaints about the fall in the amount of money that they are taking home. When contacted, Uber simply responded by saying, “We are always working to make Uber the most affordable mobility option for our riders ...we’re constantly testing new promotions and bonuses to help maximise earnings and create more efficient marketplace.”